


Entry 01: That First Night

by GuileandGall



Series: Technicolor Geek Chic [5]
Category: Saints Row
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 20:44:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8637412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuileandGall/pseuds/GuileandGall
Summary: Tala’s first night with the Third Unit is a trial in more ways than one. Frustration at her technology restriction prods a childish reaction. A suffocating nightmare pushes another deeper button.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a note here for clarification. Tala is suffering from a type of amnesia, most easily described as source amnesia, the cause of which is unknown. It affects her specific memories, but not her abilities. She knows how to do the things she knew before the abduction, but has no memory of the things that happened before she was fished out of the tank.  
> Also, this piece is making the assumption that they have a moment to sleep and/or collect themselves at the point where the game session ended on 2016.11.13.

**Entry 01: That First Night**

After her exploration with the phone, Tala was reduced for scrounging for paper and a pen. _How archaic!_ she thought as she plopped down in the chair in her room. A quick once-over of the space told her, there wasn’t much she’d be able to do in here. The little eyeball at the ceiling was both telling and disconcerting. While she knew she couldn’t reach it, she wondered if she might be able to combat the surveillance in other ways.

Pulling the blanket off the bed, she pulled it around herself and made a very poofy hood and cape, then retook her seat. Huddled over the paper she’d found, leaving a scant crack between the fabric and the surface of the desk to allow some light in, she scrawled notes.

It started with a diagram and short hand of the hack she attempted earlier. As she stared at that, trying to find her mistake, she absently doodled what looked like an almost scale replica of the wrist unit she’d seen Ginny wearing. She wanted one of those—almost badly enough to play along.

Then her growing frustration spilled out onto the same page.

 

_So, I think I hate this place._

_Not allowed to use my phone unsupervised._

_Why_ _’d they give me one if they didn’t expect me to use it?_

_What kind of nonsense is that?_

_They said they have files on us all. Know our capabilities. They should have expected it._

_Instead, they grounded me. The nerve._

_Must_ _’ve gotten closer than I thought. Guess I scared that Matt guy. Serves him right._

_As if he thinks supervision will stop me._

_Can_ _’t help wondering if those robots are connected to the system. Wonder what kind of security measures they have?_

_Seems like only the showers are private, but I_ _’m not sure I could lure one into the loo to find out what makes it tick. Which might just require destroying it in the process. That would be no help._

_I really want to see what kind of data is in those orb things. Those most certainly have some kind of access to something useful, something usable. Something that can tell me what_ _’s going on._

 

Folding up the paper, the hooded geek looked for a place to stash it. Given the eye in the ceiling, the grounding, and the state of her bricked phone, Tala doubted anything stashed in her room would stay secret. This place felt familiar somehow—lots of people, someone always watching. So, she decided the only safe place was on her person and slipped the page in her sock.

Not dislodging the blanket, she flopped onto the bed on her stomach, curling up under the blanket, like a hermit crab retreating into its shell.

Her mind raced as she tried to fall asleep. Gone were the rants from earlier. Now, her thoughts focused on the abstracts of code, the code she’d written earlier and that which she’d seen. It ran in circles around her head as she tried to fall asleep. Oddly, that seemed to relax her more than anything else—for a time.

A few hours later, Tala startled awake, her blanket shell tied around her so tightly that she was kicking at it trying to get it off. She gasped for air like she’d been drowning, at least that’s what it felt like. Sitting there, she stared at the dark room bathed in a soft glow.

“2016,” she whispered. _That_ _’s what that angry chick had said, right?_ “So, if their numbers are right that means it’s like 2022.”

Then Claire’s voice tiptoed through her head, whispering the phrase, “Memory loss.” Then that other woman’s, “We haven’t seen this before.”

“Fuck you,” Tala mumbled in reply, kicking at her blanket again. “I can remember things.”

She had parents, family, friends—even if when she thought of “mom” or “dad” no face came to mind, nor did names beyond her own. Her cheeks stung a little and she tried to remember home. Tala struggled to pull up an image of it in her head but what came to mind were simply flashes—a white wooden rocking chair, a glass table, a fireplace with with colorfully painted tiles.

Shaking her head, she grasped onto the fact that remembered how to code—obviously. Closing her eyes, she tried to find comfort in that fact. Her fingers tapped lightly over her thigh, almost as if typing.

“This has to be some kind of trick. Some kind of game.” She could hear the tiny cracks in her own voice, which just made her angrier. With impotent rage, she jumped off the bed and stared at the eye. “What’s really going on here?”

She stormed into the bathroom and slid down the wall. Swallowing her sobs came naturally, even in a room of hard surfaces that should reflect every sound, Tala managed to keep her outburst nearly silent save for a few gasping breaths. Eventually, she calmed down enough for reason to creep back in.

 _A shower_ , she thought, _a shower will help_. “Maybe a hot shower and I’ll be able to get back to sleep.”

With the water started, the room steamed up quickly. She unzipped the jumpsuit they gave her; after setting it and the rest of the clothing on the counter, she ducked right under the water. She didn’t want to think about the situation, or any of the rest of it for a little while. She screwed her eyes shut and tried not to lose her balance in the water. Her eyes only opened to find the soap, then quickly closed again. She’d managed to ignore the faded marks on her knuckles all night, either by keeping her hands in her pockets, under the table, or by just outright refusing to think about it.

Again, she thought she could will those things out of her mind. But when her fingers scraped over the skin beneath her clavicle, that changed. She glanced down at her chest, a series of raised scars, dots, still shone pink against her darker skin. Almost slipping once, she rushed to the mirror and swiped a soapy hand over the surface to see the marks more clearly. Convinced it had to be proof of some kind of experiment, Tala rushed through the door dripping and soapy.

She gestured angrily at the camera, pointing at the marks. “What the fuck did you do to me?” she yelled at the top of her voice. She threw the bar of soap at the eye before storming back into the bathroom.

This time, the water of the shower hid the tears, though the steady patter couldn’t camouflage the body-wracking sobs. Her imagination ran off with her. How long had they been experimenting on her? What kind of experiments?

 _Obviously, superhuman speed had not been part of it_ , she realized with a laugh, recalling the debacle with the tentacle beast … Freddy.

She sat under the water and stared at her wrist, at the grid of ones and zeros. It took her a moment, but she could read it: “I know more than you.” It made her laugh. The smile that prompted faded quickly as her thumb rubbed over it.

“Why did they do this to me?” she asked quietly running her hand up her left arm, which was covered in a field of faded blues and purples. Smoky clouds and swirls were just barely visible, though other details seemed lost. Even faded as it was, it felt almost familiar, comforting.

Dropping her hands into the shallow puddle in the bottom of the shower, she turned her face upward letting the hot water beat over her face. _How did I get here?_

That was the question she kept coming back to. She got the gist of why she was there. They needed to get something done, and Tala, despite her trouble making streak, possessed skills that could help with that. No surprise there. With all the tech on this ship, it seemed natural that they would awaken someone like her. _Maybe it_ _’s just some ploy._

She huffed from under the water. “It couldn’t be true. I sounded made up. Aliens. Earth destroyed,” she muttered as she dropped her chin again and pushed the water out of her eyes. “It can’t be real. It’s just some scheme, isn’t it? Has to be. We need you to bring humanity back from the brink. Yeah, right.”

Leaning her chin on her knee, Tala embraced her legs tightly. “What choice is there? You play their game, or you go back in the goo. Or maybe that’s just the story. The truth is they could just kill me. I mean why bother actually putting me back in the tank?” Tala didn’t want to think about it, but the decision is easy. “Not much of a choice really,” she muttered to herself.

The pressure weighing on her felt … she felt like she knew it, or something like it. There seemed no other choice but to go through with it. These people didn’t seem so horrible.

She started thinking about it more. About the others. Bridget seemed a little angry. The others were more quiet, though just as confused as she was. Though she wasn’t sure what to make of Adam. It must be awkward for him, being surrounded by humans. For a moment, she wondered if he truly was an alien; he’d gone above and beyond by gnawing on that fish head. Tala shivered with the memory.

This whole place seemed … odd, contrived. There were no windows, or so she’d seen so far, so this could just be a big warehouse in a desert for all she knew. _Ooh, or maybe a subterranean one._ She couldn’t help but wonder what they were really doing, what the real targets of all this were.

 _Whatever or whoever it is, this can_ _’t be on the up and up._ Her lips pursed as she wondered if she’d be able to get through all this. _What about her family? Would they care? What if they think I_ _’m dead?_

At the thought, her eyes started to sting again. With a loud sniff, she tried to shake it off. This was all wrong. None of this could be real. She hung onto that thought for a long time until she turned off the water.

Drying herself, it felt so strange—her body. It wasn’t her body and not just because of the tattoos or the marks. Swiping the mirror again, she studied the reflection. Turning from one side to the other, she discovered another huge tattoo. Her gaze moved over the subtle curves of her body; she didn’t recognize any of it. Not one inch, except her eyes. Those seemed a familiar shade of almost aquatic jade.

Pulling the towel around herself, she stared in the mirror, willing herself to remember the person reflected there. But even focusing solely on her eyes, nothing came to her. Nothing.


End file.
